1

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background
All human languages employ words to convey concepts. Words that
deconstruct into discrete units, called morphemes, consist of a root, which
conveys the most prominent semantic feature of the word, and affixes that
attach in some way to the root (i.e., prefixes, suffixes, and infixes) that
convey additional semantic features. Morphologists have traditionally divided
the affixation processes that form complex words into two main categories
inflection and derivation.
Although derivation describes different morphological processes,
Morphologists do not universally accept the reality of this division nor do
they agree on how this division should be made. Therefore, the paper about
derivation is badly needed.

B. Problem Formulation
The problem formulations of this paper are:
1. What is the definition of derivation?
2. How many types of derivation in the morphology?
3. What are the problems found in derivation?

C. Purpose of The Study

1
This paper is conducted in purpose on:
1. To find out the definition of derivation.
2. To figure out the types of derivation in morphology.
3. To discover the problems found in the study of derivation.

CHAPTER II
EXPLANATION
A. Definition of Derivation
The word derivation comes from a verb derive (means comes from or
develop from). The attachment of tion make the verb derive become a
noun derivation. The term derivation then relates to the concept of affixes

which is divided into prefixes and suffix. In those three concept, known the
term of root or base and stem1.
In morphology, derivational morpheme is an affix that is added to a word
to create a new word or a new form of a word. Derivational morpheme can
change the grammatical category (part of speech) of a word. For example,
affix ful that is added to beauty change the word from a noun to an adjective
(i.e. beautiful). The form that is resulted from the adding of derivational
morpheme is called a derivative.
Derivation is seen as a set of operations on lexemes that derive other
lexemes. Each of these operations is a word formation rule with a
phonological aspect (the addition of a phonological string or some other
phonological operation), a semantic aspect (the change of meaning), and a
syntactic aspect (the syntactic (sub)category of the new lexeme).
Derivation consists of an affix or affixes added to a root. Matthews
(1984) gives a good summary of the arguments concerned in the separation of
inflection from derivation. Derivational morphemes produce new words2;
their function is not to express morphosyntactic categories but to make new
words. They are somewhat erratic meaning and distribution. Derivational
morphemes are used to change the part of speech of words.
The basic function of derivational
3 processes is to enable the language
user to make new lexemes. Lexemes belong to lexical categories such as
noun, verb, and adjective. When a derivational morpheme is added to a base,
1 A. S Hornby, Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary 8th Edition, (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010), p. 394.
2 Malmkjaer, Kirsten et.al, The Linguistics Encyclopedia, (London and
New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2010), page 370.

it adds meaning. The derived lexemes may belong to a different category than
their original bases.3
To sum up, derivation is the part of morphology concerned with the
formation of lexical items. Derivation has the permanent effect of changing
the word. It also creates the different lexical item from the origin.
B. Types of Derivation
Derivation happens when bound morpheme(s) is attached to a free
morpheme. Bound morphemes are known as affixes, including prefixes and
suffixes, yet free morphemes are known as roots, stem, or core.
As it is stated before that derivation creates a new lexeme/word, the
derivational affixes take the big role. The affixes attached to a root can
change the grammatical category of the root. For example, the word desire
(a verb) added by the suffix able becomes desirable (an adjective).
The set of derivational affixes is open-ended; that is, there are potentially
infinite number of them. Since it would be difficult to enumerate them
exhaustively, it would never have enough time to mention it one by one.
Nevertheless, it can be said that there are seven types of derivational
morphemes4, as follow:
1. Adverbs derived from adjectives
An adjective can be derived to an adverb by suffixing ly. For
example, rapid rapidly, sincere sincerely, total totally.
2. Nouns derived from nouns
Not all derivational processes change word class. English has
derivational processes that yield nouns with meaning such as small
3 Booij, Geert, The Grammar of Words: An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology,
(Oxford University Press Inc. New York, 2005), page 51.
4 Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew, An Introduction to English Morphology:
Words and Their Structure, (Janson: Edinburg University Press, 2002),
page 48.

version of X, female version of X, inhabitant of X, state of being X,

and devotee of or expert on X. Here are several representative
examples:
Small version of X: -let, -ette, -ie. For example: droplet,
booklet, cigarette, and doggie.
Female version of X: -ess, -ine. For example: waitress, princess,
and heroine.
Inhabitant of X: -er, -(i)an. For example: Londoner, New Yorker,
Texan, and Canadian.
State of being an X: -ship, -hood. For example: kingship,
ladyship, motherhood, and priesthood.
Devotee of or expert on X: -ist, -ian. For example: contortionist,
Marxist, historian, and electrician.
3. Nouns derived from members of other word classes
There are a number of nouns derived from adjectives and verbs. Here
are some suffixes used to derive nouns from adjective:
-(i)ty, e.g. purity, equality, and certainty.
-ness, e.g. usefulness, goodness, and fierceness.
-ism, e.g. centralism, radicalism, and absolutism.
-th, e.g. warmth, length, and strength.
Even more numerous are suffixes for deriving nouns from verbs. A
verb can be a noun by suffixing ion, -age, -al, -ance/-ence, -(e)ry,
-ment, -t, -tion/-sion, -ure, -ant/-ent, er/-or/-eer, -(i)an/-arian, -ist, -ing.
For example, elect election, marry marriage, arrive arrival, allow
allowance, persist persistence, bribe bribery, arrange
arrangement, weigh weight, deviate deviation, enclose enclosure,
participate participant, erase eraser, govern governor, auction
auctioneer, library librarian, science scientist, dance dancing.
4. Adjectives derived from adjectives

In such category, prefixes predominate, but suffix ish is an

exception. The only suffix used is ish, meaning somewhat X, as in
greenish, smallish, and brownish. By contrast, the refix un- meaning not
is exceedingly widespread, for instance, unhappy, unsure, unaffected, and
unattached. As it is so common, most dictionaries do not attempt to list
all un- adjectives. However, this does not mean that un- can be attached
to all adjectives freely5; we do not discover, for example, UNGOOD
with the meaning bad.
Another negative prefix is in-, with allomorphs indicated by the
variant spellings il-, ir-, and im-, as in intangible, illegal, irresponsible,
and impersonal. The use of in- is more restricted than un-.
5. Adjectives derived from members of other word classes
Some of the processes that derive adjectives from verbs straddle the
divide between derivation and inflection in a way that has not been
encountered yet. In the term of inflectional morpheme, it is found that the
suffixes ed, -en, and ing, and vowel change, in passive and progressive
participle forms of verbs. However, such forms can also be adjective, as
in:
A not very interesting book
The party-goers sounded very drunk.
The car seemed more damaged than the lamp-post.
The modifier very and the comparative construction (more than)
show that interesting, drunk, and damaged are adjectives here, not forms
of the verb lexemes interest, drink, and damage.
Furthers suffixes that commonly form adjectives from verbs, with
their basic meanings, are:
-able able to be X-ed: breakable, readable, reliable, watchable.
5 Ibid, page 52.

-ent, -ant tending to X: repellent, expectant, conversant.

-ive tending to X: repulsive, explosive, speculative.

An adjective can be also modified from a noun by suffixing (i)al, -ar,

-ary/-ery, -ed, -esque, -ful, -(ic)al, -ish, -istic, -less, -ly, -ous, -y. For
example, monument monumental, fame familiar, element
elementary, talent talented, picture picturesque, hope hopeful,
history historic(al), style stylish, character characteristic, use
useless, friend friendly, leisure leisurely, fame famous, silk silky.
As will be seen, adjectives in ful and less tend to appear in pairs,
although the correspondence is not exact: there is SLOTHFUL but not
SLOTHLESS, and PENNILESS but not PENNIFUL.
6. Verbs derived from verbs
This section is unusual through all the affixes that used in it are
prefixes6. Prefixes re- and the negative prefixes un-, de-, mis-, and disare the most prominent, as in the following examples: tell retell, do
undo, centralize decentralize, treat mistreat, obey disobey.
7. Verbs derived from members of other word classes
There are a massive number of verbs derived from nouns and
adjectives. Some affixes for deriving verbs from nouns are:
De-, e.g. deforest, delouse.
-ise/-ize, e.g. organize, patronize.
-(i)fy, e.g. beautify, qualify.
There are also some particular verbs that are derived by replacing the
final voiceless consonant of a noun with a voiced one, perhaps with some
vowel change too7, as in:
Nouns
6 Ibid, page 54.
7 Ibid, page 55.

Verbs

Bath
Bathe
Breath
Breathe
House [s] House [z]
Wreath
Wreathe
The suffixes ise/-ize and ify can derive verbs from adjectival bases
too, as in nationalize, tenderize, intensify, and purify. Therefore, when the
roots of which they are attached are bound (e.g. cauterize, sanitize,
petrify, satisfy, and magnify), it is hard to consider whether these roots are
fundamentally nominal or adjectival. The suffix ate shows the same sort
of ambivalence. Words such as generate, rotate, replicate, and locate
clearly contain a root and a suffix, because the same roots crop up
elsewhere (e.g. general, rotor, replica, and local). However, as most of
the bases of which ate is attached are bound roots, it does not clearly
approve either adjectival or nominal bases.
There is still one prefix to be mentioned: en- (with its allomorph em-),
which forms verbs from a few adjectives and nouns defining as cause to
became X or cause to possess or enter X such as, enfeeble, enslave,
empower, enthrone, and entomb. This suffix usually occurs without the
prefix, however, and does so quite widely, e.g. tighten, loosen, stiffen,
weaken, widen, redden, deepen, and toughen. These verbs have either an
intransitive meaning, become X, or a transitive one, cause to become
X.
C. Problems found in Derivation
In morphology, it is found that derivation, despite the inflection one, have
a big role producing a new lexeme/word. However, there are still many
problem emerging from the process of deriving, among others occur this way:
1. Problems with derivational structure itself

Some derivational morphemes come up with such ambivalence,

especially in the use of bound morphemes. The widely use of bound
morpheme in some cases cannot be a guarantee for another bound
morpheme existence in another word. Derivational suffixes are less
predictable in occurrence8; while weak acquired the noun form weakness,
strong acquired the noun form strength. Derivational affixes are also less
predictable semantically9while fatherhood denotes the state of being a
father, brotherhood denotes an association of men as well as the state of
being a brother.
It is common that in introductory treatments of English grammar talk
as if not just many but all adverbs end in ly. If that were true, it would be
an unusual word class, all of its members being derived. In fact, simple or
monomorphemic adverbs, though few in number, include some very
common words (often, seldom, never, soon), and some other adverbs are
morphologically complex without containing ly (nowhere, everywhere,
today, yesterday). Also, there are common adverbs that are formed by
conversion: fast and hard, derived from the adjective fast and hard.
English is also known as consistent-in-its-inconsistency language.
Formerly it is said that derivation is to change the grammatical category
of the word. But, why should there be the form of nouns derived from
nouns? Many of the examples have unpredictable meanings (a cigarette is
not merely a small cigar, and a booklet is not merely a small book; also,
8 C. Poole, Stuart, An Introduction to Linguistics, (United Kingdom: Macmillan
Publisher Ltd, 2000), p. 77.
9 Ibid.

10

brotherhood means not the state of being a brother but rather semisecret society). Why do we have droplet but not grainlet or lumplet? It
is merely an accident that some of this words have come into general use
while others have not, so those that do exist must be lexically listed. This
gappiness also helps to confirm that this affixes are derivational rather
than inflectional, even though they do not change word class.
In the case of nouns derived from adjectives, all the three suffixes (ity, -ness, and ism) mean basically property of being X where X is the
base adjective. Of the three, -ness is the most widely applicable. Even so,
at least one noun is lexicalized: highness, which means not property
being high (for which it uses height), but rather royal personage, ad in
Her Royal Highness.
2. Derivation and Compound Words
The traditional criterion of demarcation between compounding and
derivation is that: compounding consists of the combination of two or
more lexemes, whereas derivation is characterized by the addition of an
affix, that is, a bound morpheme, to a lexeme10.
In Item-and-Arrangement Morphology, the difference between
compounding and derivation reduces to one property of certain
morphemes, namely that they are bound11. In this approach to
morphology, affixes can be represented as lexical items, and will then be
subcategorized as only appearing in combination with a stem. These

10 Booij, Geert, Compounding and Derivation: Evidence for Construction Morphology,

p. 1.
11 Ibid.

11

bound morphemes are like lexical morphemes in that they may belong to
a syntactic category such as N, V or A.
Derivation is seen as a set of operations on lexemes that derive other
lexemes. Each of these operations is a Word Formation Rule with a
phonological aspect (the addition of a phonological string or some other
phonological operation), a semantic aspect (the change of meaning), and a
syntactic aspect (the syntactic (sub)category of the new lexeme) (see
Beard
1995 for a similar view). Compounding, on the other hand, is accounted
for by a set of Word Structure Rules which form part of syntax, and
combine lexical stems into compounds.
Compounds are words formed from other complete words12. In its
simple form, two independent words combine to form a new one, and one
of the original components modifies the meaning of the other one (Booji
2005: 75). From the examples it can be seen that compound words are
made up from the combination two or more lexemes, while derivations
are made up from the adding of affixes. Compound: blackboard, campsite,
scrub lady etc. Derivation: definition, reference, enrich, humbly etc.
3. Derivation and Inflection
Halle (1973) saw no reason to list inflected forms as well as
derivatives; the only difference between them was that inflected forms
were grouped in the dictionary into paradigms13.

12 Stabler, Edward, Linguistics 20, 2010, p. 46.

13 Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew, Current Morphology, (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 4445.

12

Inflection is a change made in the form of a word to show its

grammatical relations14. Terminations of inflection had possibly originally
independent meanings which are now obscured. They probably
corresponded nearly to the use of preposition, auxiliaries and personal
pronouns in English.
The difference between inflectional and derivational morphemes is
worth emphasizing. Derivation, being concerned with the creation of new
labels, draw morphology towards lexis, while inflection, being concerned
with function, draws morphology towards syntax 15. An inflectional
morpheme never changes the grammatical category of a word, for
example, both strong and stronger are adjectives. However, a derivational
morpheme can change the grammatical category of a word. The verb
teach becomes the noun teacher if it is added affix er. So, the suffix er
can be an inflectional morpheme as the part of an adjective and also a
distinct derivational morpheme as part of a noun. Just because they look
the same (-er) does not mean they do the same kind of work.
Derivational processes occur before inflectional processes, so
derivational markings are inside inflectional markings16. Syntactically,
derived words are unmarked, whereas inflected words are marked in some

14 Krik, Krlos, A Grammar of Modern Indo-European First Edition, (European

Union: Dnghu Adsoqiation, 2007), p. 110
15 C. Poole, Stuart, Loc. cit.
16 Olsen, Mike, Cognitive Motivation for a Derivation/Inflection Division: Evidence
from Native English and Spanish Speakers, (LING 2773, 2009), p. 3.

13

ways17; inflected nouns may be marked for the plural, inflected verbs may
be marked for person or tense. Whenever there is a derivational suffix and
an inflectional suffix attached to the same word, they always appear in
different order. First the derivational is attached to the word, then the
inflectional is added to produce new form, e.g. teach teacher teachers.
4. Problems of Morphological Analysis
The word helpful clearly consists of three morphemes which are
realized by three morphs: the semantic root-help, -ful which derives the
adjective and the negating prefix un-. These are easily identified because
each has an obvious function and because one follows another, because
they are concatenated. But there are many cases where the morphological
analysis of a word is less straightforward.
It is seen there is no problem with recover in the sense of put a new
cover on but that there is less obvious justification for treating as two
morphemes recover in the sense of getting better. Many words have an
ancestor that consisted of two or more morphemes but are now
morphologically indivisible, there now being no part of the word that has
a distinct function. The word reject derives from the Latin elements reand iactare giving the sense of throwing back, but nevertheless we cannot
sensibly divide the modern English word; as we cannot *ject something,
we cannot *ject something back or *ject something again. The analysis
must leave with a root that can exist by itself.

17 C. Poole, Stuart, Loc. cit.

14

CHAPTER III
CLOSING
A. Conclusion
Based on the above explanation, it can be drawn a conclusion as follow:
1. Derivation is the part of morphology concerned with the formation of
lexical items. Derivation has the permanent effect of changing the word.
It also creates the different lexical item from the origin.
2. Derivation happens when bound morpheme(s) is attached to a free
morpheme.
3. There are seven kinds of derivation: (1) adverb derived from adjective (2)
noun derived from noun (3) noun derived from members of other word
classes (4) adjective derived from adjective (5) adjective derived from
members of other word classes (6) verb derived from verb (7) verb
derived from members of other word classes.
4. Some derivational morphemes come up with such ambivalence,
especially in the use of bound morphemes. The widely use of bound

15

morpheme in some cases cannot be a guarantee for another bound

morpheme existence in another word.
5. The traditional criterion of demarcation between compounding and
derivation is that: compounding consists of the combination of two or
more lexemes, whereas derivation is characterized by the addition of an
affix, that is, a bound morpheme, to a lexeme.
6. The difference between inflectional and derivational morphemes is worth
emphasizing. An inflectional morpheme never changes the grammatical
category of a word, for example, both strong and stronger are adjectives.
15

However, a derivational morpheme can change the grammatical category

of a word.
B. Suggestion
The widely use of derivation, in many cases, is not always have a
guarantee. Therefore, the use of derivation should be based on what is stated
in the dictionary or morphology book.

16

BIBLIOGRAPHIES
A. S Hornby, 2010, Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary 8th Edition, New York:
Oxford University Press.
Booij, Geert, 2005, The Grammar of Words: An Introduction to Linguistic
Morphology, Great Britain: Oxford University Press Inc. New York.
-----------------------, Compounding and Derivation: Evidence for Construction
Morphology.
Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew, 2002, An Introduction to English Morphology:
Words and Their Structure, Janson: Edinburg University Press.
-------------------------------------, 1992, Current Morphology, London: Routledge.
C. Poole, Stuart, 2000, An Introduction to Linguistics, United Kingdom:
Macmillan Publisher Ltd.
Krik, Krlos, 2007, A Grammar of Modern Indo-European First Edition,
European Union: Dnghu Adsoqiation.
Malmkjaer, Kirsten et.al, 2010, The Linguistics Encyclopedia, London and New
York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.
Olsen, Mike, 2009, Cognitive Motivation for a Derivation/Inflection Division:
Evidence from Native English and Spanish Speakers, LING 2773.
Stabler, Edward, 2010, Linguistics 20.
17